It is a British judge who will ask the questions to the McCanns and their friends

THE BRITISH ARE THE ONES IN COMMANDThe PJ and the Public Ministery have less and less interference in Maddie's case. Worse, the McCanns, their friends and family only come back to Portugal if they feel like it. The investigation is at a standstill (stopped).
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It is a British judge who will make the questions to the McCann couple and their friends. Noone from the PJ will be present at the questionning. The portuguese authorities are starting to lose, as days go by, their power of investigation on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the 3rd of May, from PDL, in Lagos, Algarve.

"There is little we can now do in Portuguese territory. The leads have all been re-analysed and there were only found contradictions in the statements given at the time. It is important for the people to be confronted with their declarations, but that work would have to be made by the portuguese authorities. Unfortunately, it will be a british judge who will have that mission, because the legislation in the European Union says so", a source linked to the investigation told 24 horas.

In the next days the rogatory letter will finally be sent to the british authorities. In that doccument, it is requested that more than one hundred questions are asked to the McCanns, friends and relatives, who were staying at the Ocean Club.

The delay in sending this rogatory letter was due to, as 24 horas has been publishing, the fact that the test results have not yet been received from the Birmingham lab, and also due to the need of translating all the questions into english. Our police do not have translators, and it was a private enterprise who did that work.

In view of the delay in the arrival of the test results, the Public Ministery decided to send the rogatory letter to England, due to the need of confronting as soon as possible all the intervenient persons in this case.

ALL IN BRITISH HANDSIn this moment the case is all in the british hands. Meaning, it wil be a british judge who will question the witnesses and main arguidos in the case - with the exception of Robert Murat, who remains in Portugal -, they have with them the test results of the DNA samples taken from the McCanns' apartment and the car they had rented, and have not sent yet, the record of the phone calls made by all the people involved in this case, re the day the girl disappeared.

Apart from that, the McCanns only come to Portugal if they feel like it. Because they can always ask for a rogatory letter to be sent to them so that they can be heard in the UK.

The PJ even tried to make an agreement with Kate, through her lawyer Pinto de Abreu: unintentional homicide and three years of prison
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When Kate McCann was being questionned at the PJ office in Portimao, the inspectors offered an agreeement - just like Gerry's sister, Philomena, said at that time. It is kept in the secret of the gods the way how that agreement was offered.

The 24 horas found out that the PJ asked Kate's portuguese lawyer, Carlos Pinto de Abreu, to explain to his client which was the proposal on the table. And the suggestion was for the british woman to accept being charged with unintentional homicide, a crime punished with a light sentence, up to 3 years in jail, which would never be effective (executed).

Kate did not accept the deal. The PJ always denied that such a proposal ever existed, but the 24 horas knew, from a defence source of the McCanns, that it really took place, as it is described.

TWO YEARS IN PRISON

On the 8th of September, at the peak of the questionnings to Kate and Gerry, the cardiologist's sister, Philomena McCann, said that the Police authorities had made an offer: "What the portuguese police tried to do was to make Kate confess that she accidentally killed Madeleine", Philomena told the BBC.

Also a friend of the family, Jon Corner, told at the time that the PJ had tried a deal with Kate in which she would only have a two year prison sentence. The PJ started to get suspicious of Kate's involvement after finding blood in the car rented by the McCanns, as Justine McGuinness, a friend of the family said.

More than six months after the disappearance of Madeleine, the PJ now prepares itself to perform new diligences. CM has discovered with a source from the PJ that the investigation line - which points to the British child's death - is kept and that new diligences will occur over the coming days.

The investigation proceeds in Algarvian territory, where Paulo Rebelo gives the coordinates to the inspectors that are involved in the media-frenzied Maddie case. The most recent advances in the investigation included a new questioning of the Ocean Club staff that were present at the Tapas bar on the night of the disappearance.

The apartment where the McCann couple spent the first days of their holiday and where Maddie disappearaed from, was thoroughly searched again, in an attempt to verify if any clue or residue had been left behind. Over the last one-and-a-half months, Rebelo's team also visited the village's church, where, besides analysing the space, it spoke informally with two priests, the Portuguese Jose Pacheco and the English Haynes Hubbard.

Finally, and within the resonstitution of some steps that had been taken earlier, Paulo Rebelo wanted to talk with the GNR officers that were first to arrive in Praia da Luz after the disappearance.

Meanwhile, it was learned yesterday that Michaela Walczuk alleges that on the night that Madeleine disappeared she was at a Jehovah's Witnesses meeting, in Lagos. Walczuk, just like her husband, Luis Antonio, follows this cult and attends meetings on a regular basis.

PJ stays in the Algarve

According to a source with Policia Judiciaria, the team that is in charge of the Maddie case investigation is going to stay in Algarvian territory for the coming weeks, at least. The same source guarantees that the team that is led by Paulo Rebelo is not going anywhere soon, neither travelling to England nor returning to Lisbon. The inspectors have to conlcude the inquiry until early January, as the process will become public at that time.

Details

English pollA poll that was performed by the British newspaper 'Daily Star' shows that 86% of the people that were polled over the phone want to see Madeleine's parents accused of neglect. The persons that were inquired fail to understand why the McCann couple left their children alone on the night of May 3.

Judge dismissed caseEnglish lawyer Anthony Bennet, aged 60, tried to advance a process against the McCann couple, with the purpose of accusing them of neglect. But a judge at the court in Loughborough didn't accept the case, arguing that the lawyer has no powers to advance with the accusation.

The rogatory letters that the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) is preparing, with the purpose of questioning again the parents of Madeleine McCann and the friends that were on holidays with them when the child disappeared, have not been concluded yet. As DN heard from a source with the Republic's General Attorney, those letters "are being finished. The final text has not yet been delivered to the Public Ministery".

According to the same source, "nothing has been decided yet, concerning the travels" that are to be made by members of the Judiciaria and the prosecutor of Portimao's Public Ministery, Magalhaes e Menezes, to England, where they will only be able to watch the questionigs, which will be performed by the English police. The latter will simply ask the inquired persons the questions that are formulated in the Portuguese rogatory letters.

This means that the PJ, and namely the team that is now led by chief inspector Paulo Rebelo, still has plenty of work to do concerning the inquiry process about the disappearance of Maddie, contrary to news that were reported in the Portuguese press yesterday, according to whom the investigation's coordinator had his suitcase packed to return to Lisbon. About this situation, the PJ's press cabinet just stated, once more, that there is "nothing to say".

Apart from the interrogations that are being prepared to be performed in the United Kingdom and the final report, which has not arrived yet, on the results of the tests that were done in the Birmingham lab, and the listing of the calls that have been registered on the mobile phones of the McCanns and their friends at the time that Maddie disappeared, in Praia da Luz, the investigators are effectively remaining on location, in a very discrete way, listening to Ocean Club members of staff, in an apartment within the resort that was lent to them for that purpose.

The goal, according to what DN was able to establish, is to detect possible contradictions in the initial statements, and to confirm situations that are related to the McCanns' presence in the resort. One thing is certain: the staff insist, just as DN has recently reported, that Kate McCann yelled from the apartment's balcony: "They've taken her, they've taken our girl". A version that contradicts the testimonies that were given at a certain time, which reported that Maddie's mother entered the Tapas restaurant screaming "They've taken her". An expression that has always intrigued the PJ, anyway.